Priya Vulchi: Four years ago, we really thought we understood racism. Just like many of you here today, we had experienced and heard stories about race, about prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping and we were like, "We get it, racism, we got it, we got it." But we weren't even close.
普莉雅伍爾奇:四年前, 我們真的以為我們了解種族主義。 就像今天在座許多人一樣, 我們都經歷過也聽過 關於種族、偏見、歧視, 及刻板印象的故事, 我們心想:「我們懂啦, 種族主義嘛,我們懂的。」 但其實我們離「懂」還差得遠呢。
Winona Guo: So we decided that we had to listen and learn more. We talked to as many random people as we could and collected hundreds of personal stories about race, stories that revealed how racial injustice is a nationwide epidemic that we ourselves spread and now can't seem to recognize or get rid of.
薇諾娜郭:所以,我們決定 我們得要再多聽多學。 我們盡可能與很多 隨機選中的人交談, 收集了數百個個人的種族相關故事, 這些故事揭露出種族不公平 是全國都在流行的狀況, 且是我們自己散播出去的, 現在似乎卻無法承認或擺脫它。
PV: We're not there yet. Today, we are here to raise our standards of racial literacy, to redefine what it means to be racially literate.
普:我們還沒達到目標。 今天,我們來這裡是要提高 我們對於種族識能的標準, 重新定義具有種族識能的意義。
WG: We want everywhere across the United States for our youngest and future generations to grow up equipped with the tools to understand, navigate and improve a world structured by racial division. We want us all to imagine the community as a place where we not only feel proud of our own backgrounds, but can also invest in others' experiences as if they were our own.
薇:我們希望在美國各地, 我們最年輕的一代 以及未來的世代在成長的過程中, 都能夠有足夠的工具, 來協助了解、指引,和改善 這個由種族分裂所建構成的世界。 我希望所有人能夠把 這個共同社會想為這樣的地方: 在這裡,我們不僅為 我們自己的背景感到驕傲, 同時也能投資他人的經驗, 彷彿那是我們自己的經驗一樣。
PV: We just graduated from high school this past June.
普:我們去年六月才剛從高中畢業。
WG: And you'd think --
薇:你們可能會認為——
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And you'd think after 12 years somebody in or out of the classroom would have helped us understand --
你們可能會認為,經過了十二年, 教室內或教室外總會 有人協助我們了解——
PV: At a basic level at least --
普:至少在最基本的層級上——
WG: The society we live in.
薇:了解我們所處的社會。
PV: The truth for almost all our classmates is that they don't.
普:對我們絕大多數的 同學而言,事實是「沒有」。
WG: In communities around our country, so many of which are racially divided,
薇:我們國內有好多的 社區都被種族給分裂,
PV: If you don't go searching for an education about race, for racial literacy --
普:如果你不去尋找 關於種族的教育, 尋找種族識能,
WG: You won't get it. It won't just come to you.
薇:你就得不到。 它不會自己來找你。
PV: Even when we did have conversations about race, our understanding was always superficial. We realized that there are two big gaps in our racial literacy.
普:就算我們已有關於種族的對話, 我們的了解仍然是很表面的。 我們發現在我們的種族識能當中 有兩個巨大的隔閡。
WG: First, the heart gap: an inability to understand each of our experiences, to fiercely and unapologetically be compassionate beyond lip service.
薇:第一個是心的隔閡: 無法理解我們的每一次經歷, 激烈而毫不抱歉地表達出 超越口頭話的同理心。
PV: And second, the mind gap: an inability to understand the larger, systemic ways in which racism operates.
普:第二個是腦的隔閡: 無法了解種族主義所採用的 更大、系統化的運作方式。
WG: First, the heart gap. To be fair, race did pop up a few times in school, growing up. We all defend our social justice education because we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. But even in all of those conversations, race always felt outdated, like, "Yes, slavery, that happened once upon a time, but why does it really matter now?" As a result, we didn't really care. But what if our teacher introduced a story from the present day, for example, how Treniya told us in Pittsburgh that --
薇:首先,心的隔閡。 老實說,在成長過程中, 種族的確有在學校中出現幾次。 我們都會守護我們的社會正義教育, 因為我們學過金恩博士、 哈莉特塔布曼, 以及羅莎帕克斯的事蹟。 但就算是在那些對談當中, 感覺起來種族也像是過時的,就像: 「是的,奴役制度很久以前發生過, 但現在為什麼還有重要性?」 結果就是,我們其實不會去在乎。 但如果我們的老師能 介紹一個現今的故事呢? 比如,崔奈雅告訴我們, 在匹茲堡——
PV: "My sister was scrolling through Facebook and typed in our last name. This white guy popped up, and we found out that his great-great-grandfather owned slaves and my great-great- great-grandmother was one of them. My last name -- it's not who I am. We've been living under a white man's name. If slavery didn't happen, who would I even be?"
普:「我姐姐在滑手機看臉書, 輸入了我們的姓氏。 結果跳出了這個白人, 我們發現,他的 曾曾曾祖父擁有奴隸, 而我的曾曾曾祖母就是其中之一。 我的姓氏——並不是我的。 我們一直活在白人的名字之下。 如果奴役沒有發生,我會是誰?」
WG: Now it feels relevant, immediate, because the connection to slavery's lasting legacy today is made clear, right? Or what would happen is our teacher would throw out these cold statistics. You've probably seen this one before in news headlines.
薇:這馬上就讓人感受到重要性了, 因為奴役所遺留至今的 影響就顯而易見,對吧? 或,可能會發生的狀況是, 老師會把冰冷的數據丟給我們。 你可能曾經在新聞頭條看過這個。
PV: African-Americans are incarcerated more than five times the rate of white people.
普:被監禁的比例 非裔美國人是白人的五倍。
WG: Now consider Ronnie, in Seattle.
薇:現在,來看看西雅圖的朗尼。
PV: "My father means everything to me. He's all I've got, I don't know my mother. My father's currently being wrongly incarcerated for 12 years. I've got a daughter, and I try to be that same fatherly figure for her: always involved in everything she does, it might even be annoying at some points. But I'm afraid I'll go missing in her life just like my father did in mine."
普:「我爸爸是我的一切。 我也只有他了,我不認識我的媽媽。 我爸爸被冤枉,目前 已經被監禁了 12 年。 我有個女兒,我也為她 努力成為同樣的父親典範: 參與所有她做的事, 即使有些時候會很煩人。 但我害怕我會從她的人生中消失, 就像我爸爸從我人生中消失一樣。」
WG: Throwing out just the statistic, just the facts alone, disconnected from real humans, can lead to dangerously incomplete understanding of those facts. It fails to recognize that for many people who don't understand racism the problem is not a lack of knowledge to talk about the pain of white supremacy and oppression, it's that they don't recognize that that pain exists at all. They don't recognize the human beings that are being affected, and they don't feel enough to care.
薇:只丟出統計數字,只有事實, 沒有和真實的人類連結, 結果可能很危險,會造成 對那些事實的了解不完全。 這麼做就是沒能夠了解到, 對許多不懂種族主義的人來說, 問題並不是缺乏知識 來談論白人至上和 壓迫所造成的痛苦, 而是他們根本不知道那痛苦存在。 他們無法看出會有人類受到影響, 且他們的低感受度也 不足以讓他們去在乎。
PV: Second, the mind gap. We can't ignore the stats, either. We can't truly grasp Ronnie's situation without understanding how things like unjust laws and biased policing systematic racism has created the disproportionate incarceration rates over time. Or like how in Honolulu, the large prison population of native Hawaiians like Kimmy is heavily influenced by the island's long history with US colonialization, its impact passing down through generations to today. For us, sometimes we would talk about people's personal, unique experiences in the classroom. Stuff like, how Justin once told us --
普:第二,腦的隔閡。 我們也不能夠忽略統計。 我們無法真正領會朗尼的狀況, 如果我們不了解如不公平的 法律、偏見的政策制訂, 及有系統的種族主義是如何造成 監禁比例隨時間變得 越來越不成比例。 或是像在檀香山, 監獄中大量的夏威夷 原住民囚犯,像是金米, 受到該島過去被美國長期殖民的 深遠影響, 經過世世代代,它的 衝擊力一路傳到現今。 對我們來說,有時我們會 在教室裡別人的個人獨特經驗。 像是,賈斯汀有次告訴我們——
WG: "I've been working on psychologically reclaiming my place in this city. Because for me, my Chicago isn't the nice architecture downtown, it's not the North Side. My Chicago is the orange line, the pink line, the working immigrant class going on the train."
薇:「我一直努力,想在心理 層面上在這城市中取回我的位置。 因為,對我來說,我的芝加哥 並不是有著漂亮建築物的鬧區, 並不是北區。 我的芝加哥是橘線和粉紅線, (註:地鐵線) 搭地鐵的移民勞工階級。」
PV: And while we might have acknowledged his personal experience, we wouldn't have talked about how redlining and the legalized segregation of our past created the racially divided neighborhoods we live in today. We wouldn't have completely understood how racism is embedded in the framework of everything around us, because we would stay narrowly focused on people's isolated experiences. Another example, Sandra in DC once told us:
普:雖然我們也許可以 了解他的個人經驗, 但我們不會去談拒絕提供貸款 以及我們過去的合法種族隔離 如何造成現今我們居住的 街坊中的種族分裂。 我們不會完全了解 種族主義如何深植在我們 周圍所有事物的架構當中, 因為我們的焦點很狹隘, 只放在人的個別經驗上。 另一個例子,華盛頓 特區的珊卓告訴我們:
WG: "When I'm with my Korean family, I know how to move with them. I know what to do in order to have them feel like I care about them. And making and sharing food is one of the most fundamental ways of showing love. When I'm with my partner who's not Korean, however, we've had to grapple with the fact that I'm very food-centric and he's just not. One time he said that he didn't want to be expected to make food for me, and I got really upset."
薇:「當我和我的韓國家庭 在一起時,我知道如何配合他們。 我知道該做什麼就能 讓他們感受到我在乎他們。 做菜和分享食物 是用來展現愛的最基本方式之一。 但,我的另一半不是韓國人, 和他在一起時, 我們得要努力解決的問題是 我是以食物為中心的人,但他不是。 有一次,他說他不希望我期待 他會為我下廚, 而我就非常沮喪。」
PV: That might seem like a weird reaction, but only if we don't recognize how it's emblematic of something larger, something deeper. Intragenerational trauma. How in Sandra's family, widespread hunger and poverty existed as recently as Sandra's parents' generation and therefore impacts Sandra today. She experiences someone saying --
普:那似乎是個很怪異的反應, 但會這麼覺得,只是因為我們 沒看出它其實象徵某種更大、 更深的東西。 世代內的創傷。 在珊卓的家庭中,飢餓和貧困都還 存在於在她父母親那一代, 這麼近期的世代, 因此會影響到現今的珊卓。 她遇到有人說 薇:「我不想弄食物給你。」
WG: "I don't want to feed you."
普:感覺就會像 薇:「我不想擁抱你。」
PV: As --
WG: "I don't want to hug you."
普:若她和她的另一半沒細部了解
PV: And without her and her partner having that nuanced understanding of her reaction and the historical context behind it, it could easily lead to unnecessary fighting. That's why it's so important that we proactively --
她的反應和這反應背後的來龍去脈, 就很容易會造成不必要的吵架。 所以,很重要的是我們要能主動地
(Both speaking): Co-create --
(兩人齊聲):共同創造
PV: A shared American culture that identifies and embraces the different values and norms within our diverse communities.
普:一種共享的美國文化, 能夠認同並擁抱我們多樣化社區中的 不同價值觀和標準。
WG: To be racially literate --
薇:要具有種族識能,
PV: To understand who we are so that we can heal together --
普:要了解我們是誰, 才能夠一起療癒,
WG: We cannot neglect the heart --
薇:我們不能夠忽視心 普:或是腦。
PV: Or the mind. So, with our hundreds of stories, we decided to publish a racial literacy textbook to bridge that gap between our hearts and minds.
所以,我們收集了數百個故事後, 我們決定要出版一本 種族識能的教科書, 搭起橋樑,跨越我們的 心和腦的隔閡。
WG: Our last book, "The Classroom Index," shares deeply personal stories.
薇:我們最新的書《教室索引》 分享了非常個人化的故事。
PV: And pairs those personal stories to the brilliant research of statisticians and scholars.
普:並將那些個人的故事 與統計學家和學者的 出色研究搭配連結起來。
WG: Every day, we are still blown away by people's experiences, by the complexity of our collective racial reality.
薇:每天,我們都還是會 受到別人經驗的衝擊, 受到我們集體種族現實的 複雜度所衝擊。
PV: So today, we ask you --
普:所以,我們今天想請問各位
WG: Are you racially literate? Are you there yet?
薇:你們有種族識能嗎? 你們做到了嗎?
PV: Do you really understand the people around you, their stories, stories like these? It's not just knowing that Louise from Seattle survived Japanese American internment camps. It's knowing that, meanwhile, her husband was one of an estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans who fought for our country during the war, a country that was simultaneously interning their families. For most of us, those Japanese Americans both in camps and in service, now see their bravery, their resilience, their history forgotten. They've become only victims.
普:你們真的了解你們周遭的人、 他們的故事,像這些例子的故事? 並不只是知道路易絲來自西雅圖, 待過日裔美國人拘留營且存活下來。 重要的是,同時也知道 估計有 33,000 名日裔美國人, 在戰爭時為美國打仗, 而她的丈夫就是其中之一, 這個國家同時也是 拘留他們家人的國家。 對大部分人而言,在拘留營中 及在為美國服勤的那些日裔美國人, 現在看著他們的英勇、他們的 恢復力、他們的歷史都被遺忘了。 他們變成僅是受害者。
PV: It's not just knowing that interracial marriages like Shermaine and Paul in DC exist, it's acknowledging that our society has been programmed for them to fail. That on their very first date someone shouted, "Why are you with that black whore?" That according to a Columbia study on cis straight relationships black is often equated with masculinity and Asian with femininity, leading more men to not value black women and to fetishize Asian women. Among black-white marriages in the year 2000, 73 percent had a black husband and a white wife. Paul and Shermaine defy that statistic. Black is beautiful, but it takes a lot to believe so once society says otherwise.
普:不只是要了解到 跨種族婚姻是存在的, 就像華盛頓特區的夏嫚和保羅, 同時也要知道,我們的社會 注定會讓他們失敗。 在他們的第一次約會,有人大喊: 「你幹嘛和那個黑人妓女在一起?」 根據一份哥倫比亞的研究, 在順性別的異性戀關係當中, 黑人通常被視為是陽剛的, 而亞洲人則是陰柔的, 導致更多男人不重視黑人女性, 反而盲目崇拜亞洲女性。 在 2000 年,黑人與 白人結合的婚姻中, 73% 是丈夫為黑人,妻子為白人。 保羅和夏嫚拒絕服從那統計數字。 黑人是美好的, 但當社會不這麼認為時, 要花很多心力才能相信這一點。
WG: It's not just knowing that white people like Lisa in Chicago have white privilege, it's reflecting consciously on the term whiteness and its history, knowing that whiteness can't be equated with American. It's knowing that Lisa can't forget her own personal family's history of Jewish oppression. That she can't forget how, growing up, she was called a dirty Jew with horns and tails. But Lisa knows she can pass as white so she benefits from huge systemic and interpersonal privileges, and so she spends every day grappling with ways that she can leverage that white privilege for social justice. For example, starting conversations with other people of privilege about race. Or shifting the power in her classroom to her students by learning to listen to their experiences of racism and poverty.
薇:不只要知道芝加哥的 白人,比如麗莎, 有白人的特權, 也要有意識地反思白人 這個詞以及它的歷史, 要知道白人並不等於美國人。 重要的是能了解麗莎無法 忘記她個人家庭的歷史, 關於猶太人被壓迫的歷史。 她無法忘記,在長大過程, 她被稱為骯髒的猶太人, 有角和尾巴(魔鬼的樣子)。 但麗莎知道她可以用 白人的身份走下去, 所以她能受惠於大量的 體制特權與人際特權, 所以她把每一天都花在 努力想辦法盡可能 發揮白人的特權, 用在社會正義上。 比如,和有特權的人 展開關於種族的談話。 或是把她教室內的權力 轉移給她的學生, 做法是學習傾聽他們關於 種族主義和貧困的經驗。
PV: It's not just knowing that native languages are dying. It's appreciating how fluency in the Cherokee language, which really only less than 12,000 people speak today, is an act of survival, of preservation of culture and history. It's knowing how the nongendered Cherokee language enabled Ahyoka's acceptance as a trans woman in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Her grandmother told her firmly a saying in Cherokee, "I don't tell me who you are, you tell me who you are. And that is who you are."
普:重點不只是要知道 原住民語言正在消失中。 還要能體會到,能流利地說現今只有 不到 12,000 人會說的切羅基語, 其實是一種生存行為, 保存文化和歷史的行為。 重點是要知道, 切羅基語當中沒有性別之分, 這個特性讓艾尤卡的變性女人身份 能在俄克拉荷馬的塔勒闊被接受。 她的祖母很堅定地告訴她 一段切羅基的格言: 「我不會告訴我你是誰, 你來告訴我你是誰。 而那就是你。」
WG: These are just parts of a few stories. There are approximately 323 million people in the United States.
薇:這些只是其中少數幾個故事。 美國大約有 3 億 2300 萬人。
PV: And 7.4 billion people on the planet.
普:地球上大約有 74 億人。
WG: So we have a lot to listen to.
薇:所以,我們有很多要傾聽的。
PV: And a lot to learn.
普:還有很多要學習的。
WG: We need to raise the bar.
薇:我們得要提高水平。
PV: Elevate our standards for racial literacy. Because without investing in an education that values --
普:把種族識能的標準提高。 因為,若我們投資的教育不懂得重視
WG: Both the stories -- PV: And statistics --
薇:故事 普:及統計,
WG: The people -- PV: And the numbers --
薇:人 普:及數字,
WG: The interpersonal -- PV: And the systemic --
薇:人際的 普:及體制的,
WG: There will always be a piece missing.
薇:那麼將永遠會缺了一塊。
PV: Today, so few of us understand each other.
普:現今,好少人能夠了解彼此。
WG: We don't know how to communicate --
薇:我們不知道如何溝通、
PV: Live together -- WG: Love one another. We need to all work together to create a new national community.
普:住在一起、 薇:相親相愛。 我們所有人要同心協力, 創造一個新的全國共同體。
PV: A new shared culture of mutual suffering and celebration.
普:一種新的共享文化, 有著共同的苦難和頌揚。
WG: We need to each begin by learning in our own local communities, bridging the gaps between our own hearts and minds to become racially literate.
薇:我們每個人都得要從在自己的 地方社區中學習,做為第一步, 搭起橋樑,跨越我們的 心和腦之間的隔閡, 變成具有種族識能的人。
PV: Once we all do, we will be that much closer to living in spaces and systems that fight and care equally for all of us.
普:等我們都做到了, 我們所身處的空間和體制, 就會更能在乎所有人的 平等,並為其而戰。
WG: Then, none of us will be able to remain distant.
薇:接著,就不會再有人是疏遠的。
PV: We couldn't -- sorry, mom and dad, college can wait.
普:我們不能—— 抱歉, 老爸、老媽,大學可以等。
WG: We're on a gap year before college, traveling to all 50 states collecting stories for our next book.
薇:我們現在正處於大學前的 空檔年,行遍 50 州, 為我們的下一本書收集故事。
PV: And we still have 23 states left to interview in.
普:我們還有 23 個州 還沒去做訪談。
(Both) Let's all get to work.
(兩人齊聲):咱們上工吧。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)